


Don't Know if I'm Gonna Make It Out Alive

by sunsetmagnolia



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Light Bondage, M/M, No Smut, but only as a plot device, lashton is there if you look for it, technically lovers to enemies to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24638425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmagnolia/pseuds/sunsetmagnolia
Summary: Secret agent auMichael is given a vague assignment. Calum is out to make a fool of him. Luke is there to tell him everything he's doing wrong. Ashton is just doing his best he was roped into all this by accident.There is violence mentioned but it's not graphic bc despite the action au I don't care about action sequences I'm just here for the dramatic romcom of it all.
Relationships: Michael Clifford/Calum Hood
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	Don't Know if I'm Gonna Make It Out Alive

Michael awoke with his legs tied up. At first he thought they were tangled in the sheets, but on glancing down, he learned there were no sheets, nor were there trousers. His ankles were bound together. He moved to sit up so he could reach for the rope and untie himself, but his arms were bound above his head. Great.

_“Let me buy you a drink?”  
“No thanks.”  
“Please?”  
How was he supposed to say no to someone so beautiful?_

“It’s as good as done.”  
All he’d gotten in return was a nod, dismissing him. The next flight out had a ticket waiting for him. He would learn which alias he was using on the way there.

_“How much sweet talking am I gonna have to do to convince you to let me mark up that pretty skin?”  
At this rate, the answer was, not that much. He’d spent the entire conversation so far mentally undressing this stranger. After accepting the drink, which he carefully watched the bartender make in front of him, the conversation had… taken a turn._

Michael – or Elijah as he was known that day, according to his passport – had no doubt in his capabilities. He’d done this so many times before. He didn’t get to become one of the top agents by being mediocre at his job. This, however, this task tiptoeing the fragile line of legal hit job, had taken him by surprise.

_“I’m not really the bathroom hookup type.”  
“Take you back to my place then?”  
“I don’t think so.”_

His target’s appearance was yet unknown. He was to meet a contact at a bar, where he would be slipped a picture. What was this mystery person wanted for? He didn’t know. He didn’t ask. He didn’t want to get involved. Well, no more involved than incapacitating them, and taking that act as far as it needed to.

_“Let me tie you up. It’ll be fun.”  
“Fun?”  
“Come on, sweetheart, a neck so pretty is practically begging for a fist around it.” The other man’s eyes watched the rest of his drink go down his throat._

After arriving at the bar, he had done a quick visual scan of the room and entered it into his log. He hadn’t known then that this was the last entry he’d be making for the night.

_The man had made quick work of tearing off their shirts, pressing him up against the wall so skillfully he had to remind himself not to fight back. Instead, he let go of his intuition altogether._

The man who started talking to him after sultry eye contact from across the room was decidedly not his contact, but he may have been the smoothest flirt in the world. With just a few sentences, he had anyone he spoke to wrapped around his finger.

_“I really hope you’re not expecting me to be here in the morning.”  
He watched the other man turn away as he smirked before looking back. “Of course not. Where’s the fun if there’s no chase?”_

Needless to say, being tied up was not where he’d expected to wake up. He didn’t remember falling asleep. He didn’t even remember getting off, but at this point he had no way of knowing. He struggled against the ropes for a moment, remembering any gadgets he could have used to help him were in his clothes that were tossed somewhere on the ground. He was glad he wasn’t gagged too.

 _“Let’s see you escape from this, gorgeous.”_  
“Is that a threat?”  
He smiled wickedly. “No darling, that’s a promise.”

The man from last night walked in through the door as he was recollecting the events from last night. He was buttoning one of his sleeves absently. Realizing Michael was awake, he grinned. He bent down and fished a folded piece of paper out of Michael’s jacket pocket, unfolding it and holding it up so Michael could see. “What’s wrong, cupcake? Didn’t recognize me?”

“Well, I screamed for about an hour and no one came back, and by then I’d figured out it wasn’t even his place. At like 10 the poor woman who lived there came back from her night shift as a nurse and then I had to spend some time explaining to her how I got there and why I was naked and then you know the rest.” Michael was sitting in a chair across from Luke's desk, wearing borrowed clothes in an array of mismatched sizes. You would think a place that specializes in covert operations would have a better choice of wardrobe.

Luke looked at him with – was that pity? Couldn’t be. “How did you not recognize him? He wasn’t even in disguise. And here I thought you were a high ranking professional.”

“I am!” Michael said, trying not to scowl. He knew it made him look like a teenager. “But I never even noticed my contact slipping me the photo, so whoever did that should get a promotion or something—”

“I did that,” Luke responded plainly. Of course he did. Michael sighed. “And unlike you, I was undercover.”

“I almost never do work over here, no one was gonna recognize me. And I wasn’t instructed to be undercover.”

“Maybe you were expected to know better when you were given your assignment.” Luke pursed his lips. “I’m done telling you what you did wrong. Lucky for you, I’m the only one here who knows what happened, so we have a chance to fix this before it gets out of hand.” Michael moved to get up so he could go back to his hotel room and finally change into his own clothes again but Luke stopped him. “Oh, I forgot to mention drinking on the job.”

Now that Michael knew what his target looked like, and if he was naïve enough to believe it maybe even his name, Calum was all he could think about. It was part of his job, he reasoned to himself. Not that picturing the man’s collarbones in vivid detail was helping him focus on the task at hand.

Luke had called in a favor from a colleague in intelligence who informed them that Calum was meant to be in an assumed-abandoned apartment complex down the road from the bar where he’d met Michael the night before. They couldn’t exactly walk in and stop him from doing… whatever it is Michael was supposed to stop him from doing (he never asked questions). But if it was bad enough that an international security organization was aware of it, it couldn’t be anything good.

This time Michael would be undercover, and for good measure, so would Luke. His colleague had hacked a bluetooth home assistant device in the apartment, making Michael wonder how stupid this person could be to even have one of those devices, let alone to have it in a place that was supposedly the hub of whatever chaos he was planning on causing. They could only hear one voice for the majority of the day, implying whoever was there was talking to themselves, but Michael wasn’t going to judge. Until a couple of hours later, a second voice joined the first one. Neither of them sounded like Calum, then again Michael’s strongest memory of his voice was low and deep in his ear when they’d had their hands all over each other. He blinked away the thought, suddenly self conscious that Luke could read his mind. He was well aware mind reading technology like that didn’t exist yet but he also wasn’t about to deal with another lecture. He realized Luke was staring at him. “What?”

“They said something about ordering pizza.”

“That’s such a shitty cliché way of going undercover. Why can’t I scale the building and go in through a window?”

“And have everyone in the next building see you?”

“As opposed to me wearing a Domino’s polo and delivering pizza to an abandoned apartment complex?”

Luke’s plan was a bit more sophisticated than Michael had given him credit for. They had surveilled the area before and noticed a bunch of teenagers used the empty ground floor that used to be a parking lot as a skating area, so it wasn’t hard to imagine they would eat pizza. Also, whoever was working out of the top floor knew the kids well enough that it was always one of them running the pizza up the stairs after it was dropped off, meaning their first plan of action would be to distract the kids while Michael snuck upstairs another way.

Much to Michael’s amusement, Luke was the one dressed as the pizza delivery driver. While he was handing the pizza off to the kids, Michael found a back alley that was just wide enough for him to sneak through. It had been designed for a fire escape at some point, there were clear marks on the wall where metal stairs would have been attached, but the next building had been built so close that he couldn’t walk between them without sidestepping. He managed to find a back door that led to the stairwell, only to find that the stairwell was locked. Before he could even try to pick the lock, one of the teens was headed his way with two of the pizza boxes.

Michael ducked back around the corner and waited for the kid to punch in a number before going up. He caught the door with his foot before it fully closed and turned on his heat sensor lens, slipping it over his camera and snapping a picture of the keypad so he could figure out the code later. He walked into the stairwell, still hearing footsteps going up. As quietly as he could, he tiptoed up the stairs, trying to stay on the same side of the square spiral as the kid so he wouldn’t be seen. At the sound of a door opening near the top of the stairs, he froze and stepped into the nearest doorway, keeping his breathing quiet and even until the kid walked back down the stairs, headphones in, not a care in the world. What kind of situation was this where a kid could deliver pizza to someone on an international watch list and not be worried about their lives enough to at least take their headphones out? He waited for the door at the bottom of the stairs to shut before making his way up to the top floor.

His preferred entrance of a window was no longer an option, and as much as he would have liked to bust the door down and stop Calum on the spot, they still weren’t positive he was even there. Michael settled for pressing his listening device to the wall to see what he could hear. The voices were muffled as it was, but it also sounded like both people were talking with their mouths full. He couldn’t make out any important conversations, just the sounds of two voices and some quiet but poppy music.

The door opened easily when he knocked. “What, did you give us the wrong pizza again?” Calum was looking down at his phone, but glanced up when he realized he wasn’t talking to the same kid as before. He lifted his eyes to meet Michael’s, and even though he was wearing enough makeup to almost entirely change the shape of his face, a flash of recognition set in. Calum narrowed his eyes a bit and opened the door further, wordlessly inviting Michael in. “How can I help you?”

Michael glanced around the room, scarcely furnished but still enough to look livable. Somehow there was electricity. “I’m here about the utility bill,” he said, knowing they both knew it was a lie.

“You’re not here because you didn’t get enough last night?” Calum asked. He took a step closer to Michael and wrapped an arm around the back of his head, tugging his beanie and dark-haired wig off. Michael winced a bit when some of his hair got pulled. Calum only smiled and lifted his other hand to softly brush Michael’s hair back.

“How did you know who I was?” Michael asked, ignoring Calum’s question.

“Your eyes,” Calum said.

“No, yesterday.”

“Oh, I didn’t.” He grinned at Michael’s reaction. “I figured it out pretty early on though, you kept looking around like you were waiting for someone but you were far too tense for it to be a date, and I had a feeling I was gonna get a tail at that bar. And I was right. But before we started talking, I just thought you were cute.” Michael felt himself blush, hoping however much makeup was on his face was enough to hide it. “And here you are again.”

“Who were you talking to?”

“My friend,” Calum replied simply.

“Where did he go?”

“So many questions,” Calum said, lining his body up with Michael’s in a way that was making it hard for him to focus.

“What are you doing up here?” Michael tried.

“Finally a relevant question,” he said, gently pushing Michael backwards with both hands on his chest. But no answer. Michael conceded, taking a step back.

“Why am I supposed to stop you?” He fought the goosebumps as Calum took his hands, turning them over in his own.

“Ha, now there’s the million dollar question,” Calum said, holding Michael’s gaze as his hands darted around Michael’s in a quick, practiced series of movements. By the time Michael realized what Calum had done, it was too late for him to pull his hands free. They were tied above him, attached to something on the other side of the door he was pressed up against that stopped him from pulling them loose enough to wiggle his way out of. He turned instead to kicking, but somehow Calum worked his way around Michael’s feet as easily as he had his hands, all while avoiding being kicked in the face, and then he couldn’t more his legs either. Michael was mildly impressed. Instead of saying so, he huffed a sigh and watched as Calum admired his handiwork briefly before sitting down on the floor in front of his box of pizza.

Michael was getting bored of waiting for someone to set him free. Luke was taking longer than he thought. Then again, Michael had no real way of knowing how much time had passed. The soft pop music continued to play from the corner of the room. “How many people have you killed?”

Calum glanced at him for the slightest moment before turning away. “What, like me personally?”

“Yeah, not how many people have you had killed but how many have you killed?”

“With my own two hands?” Calum asked. Michael nodded, no longer straining to escape but still trying to stay standing instead of tipping over ungracefully. “One.”

“Care to explain?” Michael asked.

“Explain what?”

“Let’s start with, how does a person like you, who has so many people terrified, who’s on an international watch list, get away with only killing one person?”

“Not that I owe you an explanation, or that you’ll believe me—”

“Why wouldn’t I believe you?” Michael interrupted, but Calum ignored him.

“But it was self-defense. Kinda. My best friend was in trouble, and it turned deadly. I had to do something. Why are you looking at me like you didn’t think I had a soul? Anyway, you can’t tell anyone, it would ruin my reputation.”

Michael shook one of his wrists so the restraint tapped against the wood behind him, partly in a display of _I can’t exactly leave_. “We can’t have that, can we?” Calum smiled, despondent. Michael, against everything he’d ever been taught, wanted to reach out and comfort him. He was lucky his hands were tied. “So,” he tried, “what exactly is your plan for keeping me here? Because someone will notice soon enough if I don’t report back.”

“I was under the impression you were on this case by yourself,” Calum said with a mostly straight face, a hint of amusement playing around his eyes once again. He stood up, pushing the pizza box to the side.

“I was, originally, but after you left me tied up and stole my clothes I couldn’t not ask for a little help.” Michael was a little proud of himself for being able to make Calum laugh.

The sound of traffic below as the window opened drew their attention. Luke was in the window, terrible wig disposed of, but still in his pizza delivery uniform. “What the fuck?” he asked, looking at Michael’s arms tied above him. Michael felt like the question was directed at him, but he let Calum answer.

“You must be the help,” Calum said, quirking his mouth into a sarcastic smile.

Luke stared at Calum for the longest few seconds before turning back to Michael and repeating his earlier sentiment.

“How come you get to scale a wall and I couldn’t?” Michael asked.

“Because you were supposed to be able to take care of this yourself!” Luke said. He stepped into the room, landing on his feet infuriatingly lightly. He stepped deftly over a string pulled taut across the floor, probably some type of alarm to let Calum know if someone tried to come in through the window.

Luke took a step toward Michael, presumably to untie him, but Calum called out someone else’s name and suddenly the man who had been the second voice stepped in from another room, shooting Luke in the leg with something bright green. A tranquilizer dart? Michael looked on, confused. The man stepped closer as Luke, indignance written clear across his face, collapsed onto the floor.

Calum turned to Michael. “He’s quite pretty, isn’t he?” Michael could only stare, slack-jawed.

“Who did I just shoot?” the other man asked, still looking down at Luke’s face.

“One of my colleagues,” Michael replied.

The man suddenly seemed to notice he was even in the room. He looked up, took in the sight of Michael, back against a door where both his wrists and ankles were tied – much like the last night but at least this time he was dressed – and started laughing. “Fuck’s sake Calum, why are you messing with him?”

“Like I was supposed to let him go?”

“No, I mean why wasn’t he-” he pointed a finger at Michael “-dealt with like this one?”

“Look at him,” Calum said, and both men did, making Michael feel exposed.

“Look at _him_ ,” the other man said, gesturing to Luke on the floor.

“Keep it in your pants, he’ll be fine.”

“You know that’s not what I meant—”

“So here’s what happens when I untie you,” Calum said to Michael. “You get knocked out, we drug you so you don’t remember any of this, and then we dump your bodies somewhere halfway across town to wake up later, adorably disoriented and unfortunately far away from us.”

Michael’s heartbeat started to get quicker. “Or, you tell me what it is I’m supposed to stop you from doing and we’ll skip the drama,” he said as calmly as he could.

Calum stepped close to Michael and lifted one of his arms to undo the ropes tied around his wrists, pausing to whisper to him, “Where’s the fun in that?”

Michael’s breath caught in his throat, inches away from Calum’s face, their eyes locked as Michael felt a stabbing pain in his leg, and then nothing.

Michael woke up with Luke’s arm across his middle. He blinked his eyes open to see he was a hotel room. No, not just a hotel room, his own hotel room. He shoved Luke’s arm off of him with more force than was necessary and sat up, making a face at the odd taste in his mouth. The last thing he remembered was breaking into Calum’s apartment hideout, and the feeling of his stomach dropping when he knew on sight that Calum knew who he was despite the disguise.

The first thing he did was go back to his phone. Of course any recent photos were deleted. He checked his pockets for the recording device he had turned on before knocking on the door, and of course that was also turned off. It had been wiped almost clean. Why would he have left anything on it? He plugged in his headphones and pressed play on the few seconds that were left. Calum’s voice, as lush as he remembered it: “Nice try, sweetheart.”

“You’re gonna get fired,” Luke said flatly, looking Michael in the eye as he sipped his hotel room coffee.

“I have endless resources and no time limit, how am I gonna get fired?”

“You do have a time limit. You were given this assignment because they thought you were capable. I know I’m not your personal supervisor over here but I do outrank you and I will tell them to reassign the job if you can’t do it.”

“Can I remind you that you don’t remember what happened last night either?”

“Because of you.”

Michael seethed, but kept it to himself. He knew it was true, it was his own fault. He had to keep reminding himself that he only got this far because he was good at his job, and one man with sad, brown eyes shouldn’t be the reason he has to start all over. And yet, a tiny voice in the back of his mind kept arguing, _what if he’s worth it?_ It took more concentration than Michael would admit to tune that voice out. Not to mention, even though he refused to ask the agency what Calum was wanted for, he knew nothing else about him either, not even if Calum was his real name. “What’s the time limit?” he asked.

“You’re supposed to be figuring that out. I’m not your babysitter.”

“You don’t know?” Michael asked. Suddenly it dawned on him that this case might be so confidential that not even Luke knew what he was supposed to be doing. The thought was strangely comforting, especially knowing maybe Luke was the tiniest bit jealous. “Look, I don’t think there’s any immediate danger.”

“We were drugged and dumped in your hotel room, which means he knows where you’re staying, on top of not knowing how we got here from there.”

Michael rubbed at his wrists, a little redder than they’d been the day before. Had he been tied up again? Or was it just the remnants of the first night? He tried to shake off the unsettling feeling that came with trying and failing to remember the night before. “But we were left here safely,” Michael pointed out, trying to work out for himself why they would have done that.

“What part of _drugged_ are you not understanding?”

“We could have been killed, Luke.” Michael stared at his hands, as if they had any answers written on them. “But we weren’t. Because they didn’t want us to be hurt.”

“Well, my leg sure hurts. And I think I have a bruise on my elbow.”

“Oh poor you,” Michael said, a little defensive. He stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“To have a shower, and then to the office so I can think about things without you in the same room.”

Michael ran the recording thorough a few different tests, even playing it backwards just to see if Calum had left any puzzle pieces. It didn’t feel like he was setting anything up like that for Michael though. Everything he tried was coming up with no leads. He checked street cameras on the surrounding roads, including the surveillance one they had set up to watch the building. None of them showed anything suspicious, and there were so many blind spots around the area that it wouldn’t make sense to set any new cameras up now. He had already asked the check-in desk at the hotel if anyone had asked for him, using both his real name and the one the room was booked under, but no one had asked, and the person who had been there overnight hadn’t left any notes. He checked his phone to see where his location had been tracked to, but it was pretty straightforward, to the apartment and then a car ride back to the hotel. No way of knowing who was driving. Whoever had deleted the photo he’d taken of the keypad with the heat sensor lens had made sure to empty his phone trash as well, leaving no trace of the story. He asked the hotel staff to let him have a look through their security tapes of the front of the building and the elevators, but nothing stood out as suspicious. If there was any tampering with the tapes, it was clever enough that he couldn’t pick anything out just by looking.

Michael, careful to avoid getting Luke’s attention as he slipped out of the building, took a cab to the coffee shop nearest the abandoned apartment complex, not entirely sure what he planned on doing once he got there. His choices were to either sit at an outside table and scope out the building further, or to wait til dusk and scale the building like he’d wanted to. Neither of those felt particularly productive. Staring at the building felt like the less impulsive thing to do, although he had already seen enough surveillance of the place to know as much as he was going to. He had figured out they were getting their power through a personal generator, but none of the building records indicated there was any running water. So, they couldn’t possibly be living there full time. Or if they were, it wasn’t living comfortably. But it also wasn’t living off the grid.

He was downing the last of his coffee when someone sat down across from him, wearing sunglasses despite the cloudy sky. “Hey, cupcake.”

“Calum?” he said, lucky he swallowed his drink before he had the chance to choke on it.

Calum smiled easily and gestured for Michael to follow him. Michael threw away his empty drink and did as he was told.

“You still have questions?” he asked, quiet enough to sound casual without drawing attention to them as they walked.

“Obviously,” Michael replied. “Starting with what happened last night.”

“Look, I would love to let you play cat and mouse forever, but I don’t have a lot of time left, and I don’t want you to get hurt, so I—”

“What are you talking about?” Michael stopped walking.

Calum stopped too, turning around to face Michael. “Just drop it, okay? Tell them you stopped me, I promise nothing bad is going to happen.”

“What?” Michael took a careful step toward Calum, and then one more. “I still don’t know what it is everyone thinks you’re doing,” he said slowly. “And what do you mean you don’t have a lot of time left?”

Calum took a deep breath and lifted up his sunglasses, revealing a black eye and a small scar on his cheek.

Michael stopped breathing, first sad and then angry. “Who did that?”

“Not important.”

“Of course it’s important—”

“Will you fucking listen to me?” Calum hissed, pulling his sunglasses back on as a couple walked past them. “Fuck it all, but I care about you, okay? Yes it’s fun tying you up and watching you squirm but this is bigger than that and I don’t want you to get hurt in the crossfire.”

“I’m a special agent, I think I know how to handle myself. Don’t look at me like that, just because you’re good with your hands…”

Calum gave him half a smile. “Take your friend Luke and get out of here. For your own good.”

“Luke lives here,” he said, not knowing what else to say. “But, you still haven’t told me why you’re on their watch list.”

“Remember how I told you my best friend was in trouble? It was with the wrong people. Now they’re after me. And I can’t keep hiding.”

“Let me help you,” Michael said, voice cracking.

“I’m afraid that’s not how it works, darling.” Calum placed a hand on Michael’s cheek. “It would be best for you to disappear.”

“And let you go walking into your doom?”

“And let me go.” He leaned forward, pressing a kiss to Michael’s cheek before whispering, “Don’t make me dart you with a tranquilizer again.” Well, that explained his sore leg.

Michael was still floundering on the pavement outside some shop as he watched Calum walk away. He was about to run after him, but instead he got a call from Luke.

“What?” he answered shortly, not concerned with how none of this was Luke’s fault.

“Where are you?”

“Not at the office.”

“Good, stay there.” Luke sounded like he was hurrying somewhere.

“Stay where?” he asked. “Do you know where I am?”

“Out,” he replied, answering only the first question. “I’ll call you back in a few minutes.” And then he hung up.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he ran for Calum, stopping him by tugging on his arm. “Stop.”

“Please, I meant what I said.”

“And I meant I wanted to help you. You can’t push me away, I know where you live.”

Calum scoffed. “No you don’t. And I don’t need your help.” A bang from the apartment building made them both jump. “Oh shit.” They both looked up, and there was smoke billowing out the windows on the top floor, exactly where Michael knew the apartment was. Calum took off running toward the building with Michael right on his heels.

“You’re not just gonna run in there!” Michael said, words punctuated by his footfalls as they ran.

Calum paused when they got to the building, looking up to the smoking windows, giving Michael a chance to grab his arm with a tight grip. “Let me go!” Calum yelled, trying to shake Michael off.

“I’m not going to let you run into a fire!”

“I’m not going to stand here and just wait to see if Ashton was up there,” Calum said fiercely, jaw clenched.

Michael let go of Calum with one hand, digging in his pockets with the other until he found what he was looking for. He handed the respirator mask to Calum and dropped his arm, watching helplessly while Calum ran toward the stairwell.

Luke found Michael a few minutes later, staring up at the top floor, nerves on edge. “What happened?” Luke asked.

“Don’t know,” Michael said.

“So you’re here because…?”

“Calum ran up to get his friend and you told me to stay where I was.”

“You’re not standing here because I told you to.”

“Fine, true. So what are you doing here?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute.” Luke lowered his voice to just barely audible above the sounds around them. “As soon as he gets back down, we’re getting out of here.”

Michael looked at him curiously. He got the message that whatever was happening couldn’t be discussed in public, but what did it have to do with Calum? He didn’t have to wait very long for an answer. Calum burst through the stairwell door, supporting Ashton on one side, tugging his mask off with his other hand. Michael watched Calum take in Luke’s presence momentarily before announcing they were taking his car.

“Leave your phone here,” Luke whispered to Michael as they followed Calum around the building. For the first time for as long as he’d known Luke, he didn’t argue, dropping his phone subtly as they walked, making it look like he’d been meaning to put it in his pocket and maybe just missed. Despite all the camera blind spots he’d discovered, someone was bound to see him ditching his phone.

They all piled into Calum’s car, letting Calum help Ashton into the back seat despite Ashton insisting he was fine. Michael jumped into the front seat before Luke could say anything. Luke scribbled something onto a piece of paper and held it out to where Michael and Calum could see. _Do you know anyone with a different car?_ And a crude drawing of an ant. Michael looked back at Luke. The car was bugged.

Calum drove wordlessly to a parking lot filled with easily a couple hundred cars. They all got out and followed him as he clicked the button on a remote, waiting to hear a responding beep. “What are we doing?” Michael asked Luke finally.

“The generator in the apartment exploded,” Calum said, not looking back, still clicking the remote in all different directions as they walked. “It wasn’t an accident.”

“It was the agency,” Luke said.

No one else reacted in surprise, so Michael tried to make that fact fit in with what he knew. “Why would they send me in to stop Calum if they were planning on blowing up the apartment anyway?”

“They got you on the wrong target,” Luke told him. “You were supposed to be on Ashton’s case.”

“What the fuck did I do?” Ashton asked.

“Shot me in the leg,” Luke snapped, but there was no malice behind it. Ashton made a face at him.

“That still doesn’t explain why I’m here,” Michael interrupted.

A car finally beeped back to Calum’s remote clicking. They all walked toward it. Michael figured it was safe to assume that it wasn’t a car that Calum owned by any means.

Luke turned to him. “You, Michael, were a distraction.”

“A distraction for who? Calum? Ashton?”

“A way for the agency to pretend they were on the right side of all of this.”

“Wait a minute,” Calum said as soon as he shut his car door. “Your agency is the ones who have been after me since I was 17?”

“Not exactly, but they have been covering up the people who are.” Luke spoke evenly, as if these were all facts that weren’t causing Michael to have to rearrange everything he had been told in his head. “The agency has been covering up a crime ring. Mostly human trafficking.”

“What?” Michael practically yelled.

“This ring has been using the agency as a cover to relocate people under the guise of rescue, tying up loose ends using agents to do the dirty work. It’s part of why you haven’t been promoted for two years. Because they know you would have been smart enough to figure it out sooner if you were given the right amount of access.”

“Implying that you weren’t?” Michael asked. He couldn’t help but take the opportunity to poke fun at Luke, especially after a whole morning of being lectured by him.

“Focus,” Calum said.

“I did figure it out,” Luke said defensively.

“You’re also a higher rank than me.”

“I haven’t been sent out on an assignment on the ground for over a year.”

“Focus,” Calum repeated, louder this time. “Do you know what they’re planning?”

“What about all those skater kids at the bottom of the building?” Michael asked, once again distracted.

“They’re bright enough not to hang out in a building that’s on fire,” Calum said.

“No, the agency knows what they look like, what if they go after them?”

“The only way to protect them is to stop the agency before they do whatever it is they’re planning,” Luke said.

“You mean you don’t know what their plan is?” Michael exclaimed. “You’re a terrible agent, how did you ever get promoted?”

“I only had a few minutes between connecting the dots and getting out of the office, you’ll have to forgive my sloppy research.”

“So now they’re after you too?” Ashton, who had been sitting quietly behind Michael this whole time spoke up.

Luke turned to him like he was just realizing Ashton was still there. “There’s a decent chance,” he admitted. “The good thing is, almost no one knows I was helping Michael, so they’re not after him quite yet.”

Calum pulled the car over to the side of the road. They had just barely reached the edge of the city, approaching smaller towns with houses spread a little further apart. He turned around so he could see everyone else. “So that makes three of us they’re out to catch?”

Everyone turned to look at Michael. “I’m obviously not working for them anymore.”

“They don’t know that,” Luke said. “It’s best that it stays that way for now. Let them think you’re still on the job.”

“Kinda hard to do that when you made me leave my phone,” Michael retorted. Luke was right, as usual. But the pressure of all three pairs of eyes watching him was making him nervous.

Calum handed him a burner phone. “Call in for reinforcements.”

“What’s that gonna do?” Michael asked.

“Make them think you’re playing along,” Luke said. “On the record.”

“And then what?”

“They won’t bother to track the phone call until they get to the building and realize you’re not there.”

“While we are?”

“Ruining their plans.”

“How are we doing that?”

After a beat, “I don’t suppose either of you has a laptop on you?” Ashton asked.

Twenty minutes later, Ashton and Luke were in an internet café in the next town, holed up in a corner while Ashton worked some kind of hacker magic. Michael had called the office and asked them to send backup, and then tossed the burner phone out the window as they drove. Now he was sitting beside Calum in the car, watching Luke pace through the window while Ashton sat at a computer just out of sight.

“I still don’t understand something,” Michael said, not knowing an unawkward way to break the silence.

“Hm?” Calum pushed his sunglasses up to sit on top of his head, but didn’t look at Michael.

“If you or Ashton ended up on their watch list, how come you don’t have a ton of people working for you?”

“I let them all go. It wasn’t really a working contract anyway, I had to find people who would stick with me and protect me, and the best way to do that at 18 was by pretending to be a bigger threat than I was. But after almost a decade of hiding and lying, I realized there wasn’t really a point in hiding anymore. It was probably me letting everyone go that triggered you being sent to find me and Ashton.”

“So what was your plan if I’d never showed up? What if it had been someone who didn’t let themselves get distracted by your…” Michael gestured to him.

“You think you’re the only one I could get tied up?” Calum looked at him, expression darkly humorous but betraying a little fear.

Michael’s heartbeat went weird for a second and he reflexively rubbed at his wrists. “Maybe the only one you could get tied up more than once.”

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Michael replied casually, getting Calum to roll his eyes.

“How about learning that your agency is behind this whole thing?”

“What about it?” Michael asked after seeing that Calum wasn’t explaining what he meant.

“Did you mean it? That you were quitting?” Calum turned back to him, this time showing nothing but vulnerability.

“Of course. I don’t know what all they’re keeping from me, but if this isn’t even the worst thing they’re hiding, I don’t want anything to do with—”

He was cut off by Calum leaning over and grabbing the front of his shirt to pull him in for a kiss. Michael made a sound of surprise and felt Calum smiling against his lips in response.

“What was that for?” Michael asked when Calum pulled away.

“Been wanting to do that since I left you that first night.” Calum smiled softly. “Doesn’t hurt that you’re not about to go back and turn me in.”

“I told you before, I wanted to help you. Before I knew my agency was full of shitty people and before I knew you were the type of person who would literally run into a fire to save someone you love.”

“Shut up, you’re gonna make me emotional.”

“Fine. One more question. Whose car is this?” Calum gave him a look like _are you really asking me that?_ Michael reached up to Calum’s face, fingers hovering just above his cheek where the bruise turned into a scar. “Are you sure you’re okay? I can go inside and ask for ice or something.”

Calum reached up and took Michael’s hand in his. “I’m okay. But if I see the guy who gave me this, I’ll let you throw the first punch.”

“Do you know who he was?”

“Some fuckin huge bald guy with one glove on, dunno his name. He sounded English.”

Michael leaned forward. “One glove?” His mind was suddenly racing, trying to match the picture in his mind with where he knew the man from.

“Yeah. I’d know him if I saw him again.”

The man found a spot in Michael’s memory. “Oh my god!” he yelled, hitting the arm rest. “I know who he is!”

“How could you possibly… is it someone you work with?”

“Only the director of the whole European branch of the agency.” Michael stared through the window again. “Why would he be after you?”

“He said something about me getting what I deserved but other than that he didn’t really talk much.”

“No, he’s not really a talker. I’ve only met him once but every time I see him he gives me creepy vibes.”

“What’s his motivation? If he thinks I’m part of the crime ring then it makes sense why he’d want to cover that up but what does that have to do with me?”

“Why do people do things? Power. Money. Revenge?”

Calum tilted his head to the side. “You don’t think the guy I killed was related to him somehow?”

“You what?” Michael asked.

“Oh right, I forgot you wouldn’t remember that conversation.”

“What conversation? Is that part of what I can’t remember about last night?”

Calum pulled his sunglasses back on. “I was 17. Ash was 18, he had just moved out here so I was visiting. He said something about having to go out one night because he owed someone a favor. I had a bad feeling about it so I made him bring me along. Turns out this favor was a trap, and they were planning on kidnapping him. Maybe initiating him into some gang, maybe worse. You’ve seen Ash, he can hold his own pretty well, but out of nowhere the guy pulled out a knife so I tried to distract him while Ash ran away but of course I didn’t do a great job of that. Somehow we managed to get the knife away from him and I guess the guy thought Ash had it so he tried to run for it but I got to him first. Ran back to Ash’s car with this stranger’s blood on my shirt. I could tell Ash felt bad for ever letting me get involved. He likes to be the one taking care of other people. Not that I ever would have made him feel bad about it. But then people started showing up around both of us who kept trying to scare us, so we started building up a network of people who would be on our side, and the rest is history.”

Michael had just watched Calum recite his whole life story calmly, as if he had distanced himself from the whole thing. “What made you stop now?”

“Got tired of hiding. Ash mentioned something about missing being able to see his younger siblings grow up, and I haven’t seen my family since I left for what was supposed to be a short trip. So we were trying to clean everything up before we left for good.”

“You were giving up?”

“We were going home.”

“But you knew you were still wanted by people. People who could hurt you.” He stopped asking questions.

“I wasn’t about to sit here and just… _disappear_ without seeing my family at least one more time.” Calum sighed. Michael didn’t know how to react. He would have jumped in front of a bullet for Calum, but knowing he couldn’t do anything to change the past made his heart ache differently. He squeezed their still-clasped hands and hoped that was at least a little comforting.

Luke was buzzing when he got back into the car. “Ashton dug up a bunch of emails—”

“That were deleted but still in the trash because people are even more incompetent than we give them credit for—”

Luke shushed Ashton and continued. “Between Mark and some guy named Jake.”

“Mark the head of your branch, Mark?” Michael asked, exchanging a look with Calum.

“The one who did a bad job of knocking me out,” Calum mumbled.

“Something about how they have to act fast because part of their ring is crumbling. Someone decided to bow out and they’re trying to figure out who, but none of their contacts will give up a name. They’ve had tabs on you two for a few years now, so when you started getting rid of anyone who worked for you, they started to get suspicious.”

“We were never part of their ring,” Ashton said. Michael would have expected him to sound a little more defensive about it, but when he turned around, Ashton’s eyes were trained on Luke.

Luke gave him a sympathetic look. “That doesn’t mean anything to them, they don’t know how far this thing goes, only that if whoever dropped out decided to turn themselves in, this whole thing will come back to Mark and the agency.”

“So did you figure out who dropped out?” Michael asked.

“No,” Ashton said. “I did find Jake’s info though. Maybe he knows.”

“And how are we gonna get in touch with him?”

“We don’t have to,” Luke said. “We sent screenshots of all the emails to the local authorities.”

Michael furrowed his brow in frustration. “Well that was stupid, what if they’re in on it?”

“I made sure they’re not,” Ashton said.

Luke nodded. “Absolutely clueless.”

“So what do we do in the meantime?”

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in the parking lot of a fast food place, munching distractedly on the cheapest things on the menu, since Calum and Ashton had all their things burn up and Luke insisted neither he nor Michael use their cards in case someone tried to track them that way. Michael emptied what little cash he had out of his wallet and Calum dug through the cup holders in the car to find any spare change. “Living large,” Ashton had joked when Calum placed the carefully calculated order.

“What exactly are we waiting for?” Michael asked, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Shouldn’t we be going back and facing the agency head on? I still have to quit.” He didn’t want to admit he was nervous, especially when Luke was playing it annoyingly cool, but he was starting to get antsy.

“They’re going to go looking for you, or me,” Luke said. “And the last thing we need is to meet them on their own ground.”

“So we’re gonna do what? _Fight_ them? They’re gonna have so many more people.”

“Weren’t you the one who walked into the office a couple years ago bragging about taking down four people at the same time?” Luke asked, still not sounding at all worried.

Calum flashed him a wide-eyed look that he chose to interpret as being impressed until he followed it by licking his lips. Michael hoped he wasn’t blushing. “That was different. Anyone who comes after either of us is gonna be an agent.”

Michael watched Luke and Ashton exchange looks in a silent conversation, confused as to how they suddenly knew each other so well, before Luke turned back to him. “It’s gonna be Mark.”

Calum choked on his drink. “You didn’t think that was important information?” Michael asked loudly.

“I didn’t want you to be on edge the whole time,” Luke said, as if it was simple.

Michael opened and closed his mouth, not knowing how to respond.

Calum regained his speech first. “So where are we supposed to meet him? I assume you’ve set up a time and place?”

Michael groaned. “Please tell me I’m not bait again?”

Michael was standing in the center of yet another abandoned building. Unlike the place Calum had been staying, which was abandoned but not falling apart, this place was set to be torn down. He’d had to sneak over a chain link fence and through some leftover construction materials just to find a way to get inside. Luke was standing watch outside the building, not as much to let Michael know if anyone was coming as to stop other people from asking questions. Ashton had tried to drag Calum away, but one sharp look made Ashton stop pulling. Michael still made him promise to stay hidden. At this point he knew Calum was not one to stand back and watch, but if things went to plan, none of them would get hurt.

Mark walked in right on time, two cronies walking a few steps behind him. “Agent,” he greeted Michael. Michael nodded in response, not entirely sure what he was meant to say. “I hear you’ve been working against us.”

“I hear you’ve been doing much worse.”

Mark sighed. He snapped his fingers and one of his people started talking for him.

“Oh all you agents are so pathetic,” she spat. “So desperate to be good all the time. You really believe the world is so black and white. Good guys against bad guys.” Mark snapped his fingers again and the other one took up the monologue. “You thought when you figured it out, you would just go tell people and they would believe you? It’s your word against mine. And unlike you, I have the resources to back up my argument.”

Mark snapped. “Crush his recording device.”

The two sidekicks marched over to Michael, grabbing him roughly by the arms and going through his pockets, all of which were empty as planned, except for one. The person on his right pulled it out of his pocket and threw it to the ground, smashing it underfoot. They kept hold of his arms. Mark snapped again and the one on his left started talking. “You’re probably wondering why it had to be this way? Why your little friend you were protecting had to die for this?” Die? Michael almost glanced over to where he knew – or thought he knew – Calum was hiding. He must have been talking about Calum, right? Or maybe Ashton, since the two seemed to be interchangeable in the agency’s mind? Either way, he wasn’t about to give away their hiding spots. Assuming they were still alive and hiding. Michael’s heart began to pick up speed.

“You know your friend did this?” Mark asked. The person on Michael’s right pushed his face around so he was looking at Mark, who had pulled off his glove to reveal a hole in his palm, kind of like Iron Man but less robotic and more gross. He tried not to make a face.

“What friend?” Michael asked.

“Your friend Ashton!” Mark yelled. “The one who stabbed me in my stomach through my hand eight years ago!”

Calum had stabbed Mark? And he wasn’t dead? Which meant he hadn’t actually killed anyone and was fooling everyone into thinking he had. Which meant he was even more charismatic than Michael originally thought. “So you’re upset because you have a hole in your hand?” he asked slowly, evenly.

“I’m upset because that little _brat_ decided to ruin my plans! He scooped up every kid on the street to help him and suddenly I’m almost out of a job because everyone is working for _him_!”

If Michael’s life wasn’t borderline in danger, he would have taken a moment to fully appreciate everything Mark was saying about Calum. Michael measuredly shook one of his shoulders to see how tight the sidekicks’ grips were. Not too bad. If he had an easy way to run out he could have tried it, but in every which direction there were piles of rubble. Not to mention fences that were too tall to jump without climbing. He knew Luke and Ashton were waiting somewhere for him to give them a signal and then he wouldn’t be standing here alone, surrounded, but they only had one shot at getting Mark out without killing him if they actually wanted him to deal with his consequences. Which meant Michael had to keep talking. “And you wanted to sell them into what? A drug ring?”

“I sell them into a sex trade, people see me send out agents to rescue them, and those rich, performative humanitarians who watch the news invest.”

“You’re traumatizing people just to make money?”

“It’s not trauma, they’re being rescued.”

“They’re being sold!” When Michael raised his voice, the people’s grips on his arms got stronger.

Mark leaned in. Michael could smell the coffee on his breath. “But they’re not dying.” Implying that he would? Michael closed his mouth and weighed his options.

“Which means you’re not planning on bringing in any more agents to do the job, just these two?” Michael reasoned that Mark was smart enough to avoid a large audience, even if he wanted to make a show of Michael as a traitor to the agency, because Michael knew too much information that would make any other agents question their alliances. He bit back a smile at the man’s narrowed eyes, glaring back at him for what he assumed was cockiness.

“Don’t sound so sure of yourself, agent,” one of the people at his sides said. “Three of us is more than enough to make sure you never report back again.” Then the other one. “And then I’m sure your friend is around here somewhere, it’ll be fun to end you here and leave your bodies to be buried under the wreckage of this building as it makes an unfortunately early exit from this world.”

“You’re gonna bring down a whole building just to get rid of me? You’re that scared?” Michael challenged, voice getting louder so that it echoed around the empty crumbling walls. Luke had to hear that. And Calum, if he was close enough to be recording the whole conversation. Luke had ditched his phone long before Michael, so it was risky recording everything without a way to send it directly to the other branches under the hopes that someone higher up there was possibly unaware of the problem who would be willing to help them. Technically the agency CEO was located in North America. Not that anybody he knew had ever met them.

“Shut up,” Mark said, and one of the cronies wrapped a piece of fabric tightly around his mouth so he couldn’t talk. Michael caught a spot of motion out of the corner of his eye and hoped it was Luke. If it wasn’t, he hoped it wasn’t Calum. Suddenly, Mark jumped back. He looked down at his arm, rubbing it like something had hit it, and then looked up to where Michael had seen someone. Michael and the other two followed his gaze, thankfully seeing nothing. Mark turned back to Michael, looking at him like he had something to do with it. Michael shrugged, trying to look surprised. Mark jumped again, this time giving a little “ouch” as he did. Mark didn’t take more than a second to react, pulling out his pistol and firing two shots into what still looked like just an empty room. He glared at Michael, commanding the other two to keep him there while he went upstairs to take a look. Michael strained against the fabric on his mouth, hands locked to his sides so he couldn’t reach up, making as much noise as he could. He didn’t care about stopping Mark as long as Luke got the message.

Apparently he did, because by the time Mark got up to the room, there was no one inside.

Where’s your friend, agent?” Mark roared. Something shook loose and fell behind him. It could have easily been from the yelling, but Mark shot at it anyway.

“If he keeps shooting holes in the walls this place is gonna come down on _us_ ,” the person to Michael’s right whispered to the other.

“I’m not saying anything to him,” the other one replied.

Michael might have been right to identify these two as out of their depth. They were probably low level agents who had been give the opportunity to work for Mark in exchange for selling their souls or something. He tried tugging on his arms again but this time their grips were much tighter. He could barely move. He considered tripping one of them, or even just lifting his legs to see if they would both tumble down. He was significantly taller than one of them, it would probably be enough to make them both lose their balance at least enough to give him a running start. He didn’t have to wait long to make a decision.

Luke appeared behind Mark, as if out of thin air, and Michael had never been so grateful to see how light Luke was on his feet. Michael used Mark’s distraction to topple over the two people holding his arms down, tearing away the fabric around his mouth. Before he even had time to think of what to do next, he was on autopilot. He was right, these two were agents, but clearly not very skilled ones despite working for the director. He dodged their attacks easily, disarming one of them before he realized what had been pulled out was even a gun. He watched it slide across the floor out of the corner of his eye as he knocked down the shorter one who was about to make a run for it.

Calum jumped out from his hiding spot in time to grab the gun and throw it out a hole in the wall that may have once been a window, hearing it clang distantly against the metal fence. After one centered hit knocked out the taller one, Michael had the other’s arms pinned behind her back, no longer having to struggle to keep her still. Calum caught his eye right as he gave the sidekick in his arms a swift kick, sending her to the floor in one move. He took a second to catch his breath, watching Calum stare at him, eyebrows raised, mouth agape.

He turned to where Luke and Ashton had successfully gotten Mark in a chokehold. “Are we done here?”

Luke shook his head. “The building is coming down in _minutes_.”

“Why don’t we just leave him here then?” Michael asked, only to see Mark’s reaction. Mark predictably, struggled against Luke’s grip, making unruly noises. Ashton gave him an elbow to the stomach, silencing him. “You’re right, let’s go.”

Michael and Calum dragged out the cronies into a waiting armored car while Luke shoved Mark into a second one. The third car stayed behind as the other two took off to wherever the agency dealt with traitors. Out of the car stepped a woman in a sharp pantsuit. Michael didn’t recognize her.

“Congratulations, agents,” she said in an American accent to the group before turning to Michael.

“Actually, I’m turning in my badge,” Michael said. He pulled it out of his pocket and held it out to her, but she just gave him a curt smile.

“Hold onto that for just a minute while I explain. Join me in the car, won’t you?” The four of them looked at each other before following her, climbing into the back of the car where the back two rows were facing each other. Calum subtly grabbed Michael’s hand as they got in. “We’ve had a feeling something over here was corrupt for a while, but no one has been able to figure it out. Until your reports back to us, both of yours. We were able to put the pieces together, and so, it seems, were you.”

“What pieces?” Luke asked.

“The crime ring, the kidnapping and rescuing, unfortunately there was nothing illegal about the financial side of things but that’s about the cleanest thing he was doing. And now with your voice notes from this whole exchange, I’m sure we’ll have more than enough evidence to indict him.” She held out her hand to Michael, surprised when Calum was the one to hand her the recording device. “Now agents, I’d say you’re both up for promotion, and if you’d like, relocation.”

“What about them?” Michael asked, gesturing to Calum and Ashton.

“Well, with our sincere apologies for the disturbance to your lives, you’re free to go. And we’ll replace everything you lost in the generator fire, as well as finding you a new place to live.”

“No,” Michael said quickly, earning surprised reactions from everyone. “I mean, Mark was literally the reason they haven’t been able to go home for almost ten years, I feel like they deserve more than just a new apartment and some stuff.”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “I see. I assume this is all explained in the recording?”

“For the most part,” Michael said. He had no right to tell her Calum’s story, but there was one more detail that would really drive it home. He looked at Calum and was met with a reassuring squeeze to his hand. “Mark tried to kill Ashton years ago, Calum stopped him, and neither of them have been able to go back home since, with all of Mark’s criminal buddies after them.”

“They couldn’t go back and put their families in danger too,” Luke muttered, blinking up at Ashton.

“We’ll work out a formal plan of action, but for the time being, in addition to the things I mentioned, we’ll assure the safety of you and your families indefinitely.”

“What if there are other directors in on it?” Michael asked. “Part of the crime ring? We can’t be sure we’ve stopped it completely.”

“Rest assured agent, you’ve completed your assignment with flying colors. We have people working to undo everything else.”

Michael let out a shallow breath, still not ready to believe things would be taken care of as easily as she was making it sound. The car stopped and someone opened the door beside him, showing they were back at the hotel where he’d been staying.

“I encourage you to relax for the rest of the day. We’ll arrange for a flight home for each of you tomorrow. If you still want to turn in your badge, let me know in the morning. Everything I’ve said still applies. You’ve done an excellent job.” Luke and Ashton got out of the car, followed by Calum, who let go of Michael’s hand but stayed by the door.

Michael looked at the woman curiously. “What- what was my job exactly?”

“Getting to the bottom of the European branch’s exploits. We didn’t know it went all the way up to Mark, but I’m not terribly surprised.”

“So why was I told Calum was my target?”

“He was on the agency’s radar for being somehow connected to Mark, so we took a wild guess and hoped he would lead you to the full story.” She turned to Calum. “We had no idea about what Mark put you through. Again, my sincerest apologies.” Calum gave her a polite, tight-lipped smile. “How about this, all of you charge whatever you like to the hotel for tonight – nothing is too excessive – and I’ll underwrite it all.”

“You, personally?”

“Me, under the agency umbrella. Dorothy Claremont, CEO, nice to meet you.”

Michael walked back to his room in a daze. Dorothy had handed him four key cards before sending him on his way, assuring him that the room all of his things were in was one of them. One of those other rooms would definitely not be getting used.

Calum collapsed onto the bed as soon as Michael unlocked the door. “What the fuck,” he said under his breath, eyes closed, face to the ceiling.

Michael sat down in the same chair where he’d started that morning, except now instead of facing a disgruntled Luke, he was staring at a painting of a generic flower on the wall. He got up slowly and sat on the bed beside Calum, who opened his eyes when the bed shifted. Like he was pulled by some invisible force, he leaned down and kissed Calum, soft but intentional. Calum deepened the kiss by reaching his arms up, winding them around Michael’s neck and pulling him down on top of him. Michael was the first one to pull away, breathing deeply for the first time all day. “I can’t believe anything that happened today.”

“I can’t believe you actually _can_ fight off two people at once,” Calum said, grinning lightly. “That’s pretty hot.”

“Fuck off,” Michael said, sitting back up but grinning all the same.

Calum sat up beside him, throwing an arm around his shoulders and pulling him closer to plant a kiss on his cheek. “You know you don’t have to quit your job, right Michael?” he said softly. Michael’s stomach fluttered at hearing Calum say his name.

“I do though.”

“Not because you made a promise to me.”

Michael turned to face him, all second thoughts falling from his mind as soon as he saw Calum’s face, none less attractive for being bruised, but setting his decision in stone. “I mean, I’m glad they’re taking care of the problems Mark created, but I can’t keep working at a place that would make it so easy for him to get away with it. And I did promise you.” Calum’s expression softened into something much more tender. He leaned forward, meeting Michael’s lips once again.

They eventually got around to ordering dinner, digging through the room’s minibar like their lives depended on it. An hour later, room service plates piled outside the door, Calum finally had a cold pack on his eye at Michael’s insistence. “So what happens tomorrow?” Calum asked, words slightly running together from the alcohol.

“We meet back with Dorothy, I turn in my badge, we fly back home.”

“Separately?”

“We do live in different places.”

Calum reached over and grabbed Michael’s hand. “That could change.”

“Not before you go back and see your family.”

“You could come with me?”

Michael’s head was pleasantly fuzzy, but he knew if he looked back at Calum he would lose his resolve so he kept his eyes closed. “They haven’t seen you in years, I’m not about to take you away from them.”

Michael felt Calum slide closer to him, leaning on his shoulder. “And after that?”

“After what?”

“After I see my family, after you go back to the states, after we’re not apart anymore?”

“After that, I’m taking you on a real date. One where I remember what happened the next morning.”

“Shame. It’s kinda fun watching you be cute and confused.”

Michael lightly shoved Calum off of him, smiling as he leaned back on the headboard behind them. Calum leaned back beside him, reaching over to poke his cheek. “And what happens until then?”

He tilted his head to look at Calum sideways. “Besides sleeping?”

“I can think of plenty of things that are more fun than that.” Calum was holding a straight face but Michael could tell he was trying not to smile.

“For example?” Michael asked innocently. His middle was starting to get warm at the memory of their first meeting.

Calum ran a finger down Michael’s arm and circled his wrist with a featherlight touch, flashing him a wicked grin. “Should we find out?”

Dorothy was waiting for them the next morning. Michael and Calum had tumbled out of the room in a rush, having waited until the last minute to pack Michael’s stuff back up. The surprising part was seeing Ashton and Luke walk out of the next room together in a similar state. Michael had to bite back a comment about it, but he exchanged an amused look with Calum as they piled into the elevator.

Dorothy handed them each a replacement phone, having figured out that all of theirs had been lost at various points, along with a plane ticket. Luke was officially reinstated as well as promoted, and even after handing in his badge, Michael felt somewhat better knowing there was at least one person at the top level now who genuinely had people’s best interests at heart. What he actually said to Luke was “I guess now that I quit you’re a better agent than me by default.”

After exchanging numbers and saying bye to Luke, the rest of them got in a car to go back the airport. Calum clung to Michael’s side all the way through security and until he had to run to his own gate for his flight. Half an hour later, Michael was on his own in a plane seat, blessedly first class courtesy of Dorothy herself. Halfway across the ocean and an airplane bottle of wine later, he got a message from Calum. _Wish you were flying back with me instead of Ash, he snores._

_Wish I was flying back with you for other reasons._

_So I could get you by yourself in the bathroom?_

_Gross, is that a threat?_

_No baby that’s a promise._


End file.
